Random ramblings and observations

To Facebook, or not to Facebook…and Instagram…and Twitter

It’s a question I keep asking myself and I haven’t yet come up with a definitive answer.

Social media is a giant. It’s a force that has taken over life as we know it and controls large parts of the human race. We love the idea of throwing ourselves out there, sharing photographs with strangers and telling the world what we think, yet at the same time we open ourselves up to scrutiny and possible backlash with our words and images. When it all began I’m sure the intentions were honorable; 10 years ago Facebook was a means of keeping in touch with friends, Twitter was a way of sharing your thoughts quickly. It all started nicely but now those little social fairies have morphed into controlled giants capable of producing scary outcomes even their handlers can’t manage. In recent years teenagers have used Facebook as a way of bringing Cyber Bullying to life. Twitter had produced wars between celebrities and normal folk alike. We now deal with Trolls and stalkers who spend hours going through random pages leaving horrible messages for unsuspecting innocent people. And then there is Instagram which some people like Kim Kardashian use religiously to define the word ‘Vanity’.

I know I’ve written about this before but it was brought to light again with the recent death of Robin Williams. His daughter Zelda used her social media accounts to express her grief and gratitude for her father. However she has apparently received negative comments, and images, through Twitter causing her to delete the apps so she doesn’t have to deal with added pain during her time of grief. Who does shit like that? Who goes out of their way to purposefully cause someone added grief when they are already dealing with death, pain and sadness?

I have these apps: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Facebook helps me keep in touch with family and friends who live abroad. Twitter is near to useless for me and I think I will delete it (again). Instagram lets me keep up with tattoo artists I love and other hobbies I have an interest in. I find on FB I am more of a glorified stalker than anything else. I poke around spy on friends pages! I comment on photos or status updates but that’s about it. And I’m wondering if I really want that. I spend a scary amount of time trolling through the days statuses and comments and stories and I think, ‘is this right?!’

My Dad refuses to be on any social media. He views it as a Big Brother situation and I thinks he is not far off. He has a page on Facebook but that is because he works with the public and it’s a publicity thing he has been recommended to do (I asked for a friend request and I still haven’t been accepted!) I have friends who either never jumped on the social media bandwagon or who jumped off completely and in some ways I envy them! I wish I could but the one thing that keeps me logged on is being able to ‘see’ friends and family who live so far away.

Queen sang about it, and I long to do it…but I’m scared!

“I want to break free…”

FOLLOW UP!

I did it. I officially divorced Facebook on September 17th 2014. It’s freeing and weird all at the same time. I keep catching myself wanting to check up on who has done what but I can’t. I didn’t realize how much I thought about Facebook until I hit the ‘deactivate’ button. I think this is a healthy thing to do! My husband has also done the same as me so we have jointly stepped away from the giant that is Facebook and we are no longer informing our friends about the movies we watch, how we are feeling or taking mundane Buzzfeed quizzes!

2 thoughts on “To Facebook, or not to Facebook…and Instagram…and Twitter”

Ha! So funny you wrote about this too. The whole selfie thing ranks me out. In fact, I find that I am realising there are quite a lot of complete tools out there. People I know even. Facebook becomes a way to gain attention and they have become SO self obsessed. Shudder. So looking forward to seeing you missy xxx